


Yours Is in Red, Underlined

by dls



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War Team Iron Man, Dark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 13:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12255198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/pseuds/dls
Summary: The Scarlet Witch did not get her name without practice. Wanda Maximoff was catatonic in her cell on the Raft. Cause and effect.Or: 5 Times Wanda Maximoff Used Her Powers on the Avengers and the 1 Time She Tried





	Yours Is in Red, Underlined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/gifts), [ali_aliska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ali_aliska/gifts), [SailorChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/gifts).



> After reading a couple of fics where Wanda invaded and toyed with Tony's mind, I was in a weird head space where I hurt for Tony and hated Wanda. This is the result. 
> 
> My headcanon for this fic is that the collar not only suppressed Wanda's powers but it also reflected it back at her, which is why she appeared catatonic in the Raft, because she finally got a taste of her own medicine.
> 
> Inspired by [Coming Unstrung by Wix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097137/chapters/27424002), [Winter's End by ali_aliska](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307321/chapters/25303275), and [Scarlet by SailorChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848317).
> 
> Beta-ed by [totallynotevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/totallynotevil).
> 
> References/Quotes   
>  Title from "Look What You Made Me Do" by Taylor Swift.

**One.**

When Wanda's powers first manifested, she was in a room full of HYDRA scientists. The wave of telepathic energy knocked out the equipment measuring her brain waves and invaded every mind within a ten-foot radius.

Half of the scientists went mad from dark visions of rage and terror and the other half sustained significant physical damage from their crazed colleagues.

Wanda didn't remember any of it, only learning of the incident from the Baron's fond retelling and the high hopes he had for her and her brother. Pietro was discomforted by some of the Baron's plans and callous disregard for human lives, but Wanda felt none of it.

HYDRA was a means to an end for her. As long as they got their revenge on Stark, it would all be worth it.

*

Seeing into Stark's mind and amplifying his fears were everything Wanda had ever dreamed of and more. For a man carrying a staggering amount of self-important guilt, he did not spare a thought toward her country and her family destroyed by his missiles.

It was almost disappointingly easy to manipulate Stark onto a path of global destruction but the satisfaction of watching him lose everything by his own hands made up for it.

 

**Two.**

During her trainings, Wanda was taught to not to push but to break the boundaries of her powers once it became clear that the Scepter's influence on her was multi-faceted whereas Pietro only had his speed boosted.

There were many applications for psionic energy, hallucination was only the beginning. If she could control what her targets saw and what she wanted them to see, their minds would become open books for her to scribble in or tear out the pages as she pleased.

It was exhilarating, turning people into puppets and watching them dance to music only she could hear.

The group of students who had the misfortune of chancing upon their base worked mindlessly around them. Hands that once typed on StarkPads - mediocre technology and a poor attempt at distracting the public from Stark's death count – now held cleaning tools.

Someone had to do the grunt work.

*

Wanda could still feel the aftershock of the taser arrow, little pings and pangs as she stumbled outside the base to recover, Pietro a steady presence by her side. If they thought she could be stopped so easily, then they would pay for their underestimation.

Banner, the one whose alter ego was of great interest to the Baron, came into her line of sight. With gritted teeth, Wanda concentrated and contorted her thoughts into the doctor's. It was like reaching into a lake and stirring up the sediment on the bottom until the water turned a murky green, pulling Banner down and drowning him out.

The Hulk roared into being in Johannesburg. Iron Man donned a new armor to battle his friend. Wanda laughed all the way to Seoul.

 

 **Three**.

Compared with telepathy, telekinesis was more of challenge to master. Planting ideas or visions into minds felt natural to her, likely because she was treading on the familiar terrain of thoughts. Calling her energy into being and commanding objects to action was much harder, as it required her to channel the intangible into reality.

She started with wooden blocks, alternating between tearing them apart and suspending the fragments in the air. Once her skills improved, the Baron let her practice on the lesser prisoners, the ones with little information and low importance. Information gathering was not the priority but it did force her to control the speed with which she took them apart. Bones bent to unnatural angles. Fingers twisted into intricate designs. Skin sliced open and lined with trickles of blood.

Red splatters on the ground. Crimson wisps in the air. Scarlet in her name.

*

Wanda hadn't wanted to hurt Vision. He was kind to her and had always been since the moment he rescued from Novi Grad as it plummeted to Earth. His otherworldliness made her appear normal by comparison. They were similar, two of a kind, and joined by the mind stone in his forehead.

That rare connection had begun to fray when Vision stopped her from getting supplies, then unraveled when he revealed he was following Stark's orders, and finally snapped when he said he could not allow her to leave. His betrayal was yet another debt added to the ledger she kept of Stark's crimes.

Wanda held Vision to the floor, pinning him down and standing over the being she had once looked up to. She could stop, she should stop, but she would not. The concrete cracked beneath the force and she relished the damage, pushing and pressing until it gave way and Vision fell with it.

Stark's home crumbled. Wanda blinked away the dust and felt free.

 

**Four.**

Wanda felt every bullet that pierced her brother's body, tearing through skin and embedding in flesh. The phantom pain flooded her senses and drowned out her calm. She felt Pietro's heart pumping to sustain his life but only succeeding in hastening its end as more blood flowed, painting his clothes and the ground in crimson. Pietro's last exhale was her scream.

Dropping to her knees, she unleashed her anguish and fury in a flash of red energy that obliterated every sentry in sight. A magnificent display of dominance that had no audience and garnered no applause. Grief strumming in her veins as power sang in her blood. Wanda left her appointed post, the position that kept her from Pietro's side, with vengeance on her mind.

Protecting the key was meaningless now that she had lost her brother, another family member killed by Stark's recklessness and ignorance.

Let the city crash and the world burn.

*

How typical it was of Stark to accuse her of hurting Vision's feelings, a hint of reprimand in his voice as if she had lashed out unprovoked. They had imprisoned her and tried to justify it under the unacceptable and unimaginative excuse of protection. With a twitch of her fingers, Wanda readied her attack and waited for Clint's distraction.

The clang of the car slamming into the Iron Man armor was the opening note to her symphony, one that she had been composing in her head since the night the Stark Industries missile killed her parents. More vehicles cascaded down, each landing with supernatural accuracy on Iron Man's torso, limbs, and head.

A crescendo of violence and vindication.

 

**Five.**

The mission in Lagos was supposed to be straight forward and simple: track down Crossbones and his mercenaries and stop their theft of a biochemical weapon. As Natasha had put it, a standard in-and-out grab. No one expected it to escalate into a full-scale battle in the middle of a crowded market, culminating in the detonation of a suicide bomb.

Wanda felt her powers waver as red tendrils surrounded the explosion, moving it up and away from the people shouting in alarm. Some directed at the sight of the Avengers, some caused by the ball of fire in the air, and some aimed at her.

It was distracting. With a grunt, she concentrated on pushing the blast into the airspace but somehow missed the mark. The fiery energy slammed into the apartment complex and the screams became sharper with anger, harsher with blame, and shriller with ungratefulness.

*

Wanda thought about Natasha's moniker as she pinioned the other woman's ankle before her strike could land on Clint's neck. The spider caught in a web of red. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the Black Widow spiraling through the air. Before moving on, she sent Clint a stern look and an order to stop pulling his punches. This was not a sparring session, this was a war.

These were not their friends or allies, they were the enemy and it was time to accept that fact. Stark had turned Vision against her, it was not unreasonable to think he could have done the same with Natasha. Rhodes had always sided with Stark like a loyal guard dog and this newcomer, another spider, quoted Stark nearly every time he opened his mouth.

For the most part, Wanda was able to school her expression into one of somberness, affected by the threat of Winter Soldiers in wait and the ramifications of the Accords. She should not derive any joy from crushing Stark and his supporters, which was not to say she didn't.

 

**One.**

Wanda woke to the silent figure of Stark looming at the foot of her hospital bed. There was an intravenous drip attached to her right arm that tugged painfully when she shifted to sit up. Whatever they had injected into her system was keeping her weak but that did not stop her from scowling at the man responsible for all the losses in her life with as much contempt as she could manage even when her eyes were already drifting shut. She slumped back against the pillow that was bunched up on one side, an uncomfortable angle that pinched her neck against something...

"Maximoff." Despite her best efforts, Wanda shivered at the cold rage in Stark's voice. "You will be transported to a high security prison, where you will remain until a trial date is set. The muscle relaxant will wear off in a few hours but the collar is staying on."

Collar. That was the weight around her neck. The sharp surge of spite roused her drowsy mind. Instinctively, she summoned her power and felt it simmering under her skin, the same shade as the blood in her veins. Each beat of her heart called out for vengeance, for punishment, for justice. Channeling the last of her energy into a mental attack, a scene of utter destruction that was guaranteed to bring Stark to his knees, she struck.

_Pietro jerked as each bullet pierced his body, blood blossoming from the wounds like the springtime flowers they used to pick in the fields. Except they weren't bullets. Strands of red lightning stabbed into her brother and Wanda clenched her fist in a fruitless attempt to undo what she had done. Her fingers stiffened around a bouquet of life that quickly turned to death._

_"Come join me, sister."_

The hospital room shimmered back into focus but she could still see Pietro's lifeless eyes.

Wanda felt like screaming, to demand answers of what she saw and ask reassurance that it wasn't real, but all she could manage was a hiss. There was a taste in her mouth, bitter and burning and bloody. She choked on it.

"Huh, guess the energy had to go somewhere in a closed system." Stark shrugged, the casual lift and drop of his shoulders felt like a taunt. "If I were you, I'd think twice about using your voodoo. Karma's a bitch."

*

Wanda watched the doctor's hands as he peeled off the strips of tape holding the tubing in place. He was humming nervously and avoiding eye contact, his fear irritated and pleased her in equal measure.

It would be effortless to bind those wrists and take him as hostage before the heavily-armored soldiers even knew what happened. Her fingertips warmed as she readied her power to ensnare the doctor and pull him to her side as shield.

It met a frustrating barrier before it could manifest, bouncing back violently and lashing all the way up her arm.

The doctor stumbled back, Wanda caught a glimpse of his wide eyes before a spray of red obscured her vision. Her mind connected the needle in the doctor's hand and the gushing wound on her forearm, she must have recoiled when he went to remove the IV. That moment of clarity faded into a crimson fog as she felt red tendrils digging into her skin, burrowing through her flesh, and tightening around her bones.

Waves of pain crashed into her and she was powerless to resist as she was dragged under.

*

Wanda woke with a scream, the familiar pressure was still pressing down on her and she could not move. It was like being trapped in her childhood home again, immobilized by debris and frozen in grief.

Stark. This must be Stark's fault because everything that had gone wrong in Wanda's life could be traced back to the Merchant of Death masquerading as a hero. She should have told him to end his own life when she glimpsed inside his pathetic mind and saw his pain.

_Shrapnel to his chest. Water in his lungs. Fire on his skin._

The quick death she would have offered him would have been a kindness.

_A gun against his head. A knife across his throat. A rope around his neck._

Crimson filled her vision as she imagined the multiple scenarios she could have implanted into Stark's mind and how she wished she could go back to rectify her mistake. Almost unconsciously, she reached out to sense Stark's mind and wondered maybe it was not too late after all.

_A gun against her head. A knife across her throat. A rope around her neck._

It was all wrong.

Wanda felt the bullet tearing through her mind, the blade cutting off her voice, and the cord strangling her power.

She was dying and there was nothing quick about it.

*

Being alive was more of a punishment and less of a reward, especially as Wanda took in her surroundings. White walls and dark bars. A prison.

"What did they do to you? Was it Stark?" Clint shouted, stance wide and shoulders back, ready to fight when they had already lost.

_Crazed scientists gouging each other's faces. Vacant students performing menial tasks without rest. Helpless prisoners begging for her to stop._

"Hey, hey, stay with us!" Sam called out, waving his arms frantically as if he was a caged bird struggling to fly.

_Her city plummeting to earth. Her home crumbling to dust. Her family dying before her eyes._

"Um, guys? Are her eyes supposed to be red?" Scott asked, shifting his weight like he couldn't decide if he wanted to lean in for a closer look or back away in fear.

_The waxy gray in her parents' complexion. The shocking white of Pietro's hair. The menacing darkness from within._

It swallowed her whole.  

**Author's Note:**

> [dls-ao3.tumblr.com](https://dls-ao3.tumblr.com/)


End file.
